I'm still in the process of writing about my experiences with my Android phone, which will see at least two more sections (on the OS itself and on T-Mobile). The short version is I started with an iPhone, got rid of it for a 4G Android phone, decided that Android just doesn't have it going on, and am switching back to the iPhone.

Now, one thing I've seen repeated many times since I've started talking here and elsewhere about my Android experiences is a common refrain: It's not about the phone. It's not about the operating system, or user experience, or call quality, or ease of use. An iPhone is a bad choice because Apple is an evil company.

With no disrespect intended for any of the dozen or so people who've said this to me: I find that to be a remarkably silly thing to say, but not for the reasons you might expect. I'll get back to that in a minute.

First, before I get into that, let me start by destroying a childhood myth that we all learn in school.

When you make a product for sale, you do not determine the price of your product in the marketplace by taking the total cost of making it, adding some percentage to the cost of making it that represents your profit, and then selling it at that price.

An astonishing number of people seem to believe that this is how the price of goods is arrived at, and I am constantly surprised by how many folks believe it's true. That isn't the way it works at all.

When you sell a product in the marketplace, you price it at the absolute tippy-top highest price the market can bear. Then, you drive the cost of making it as low as is humanly possible, using whatever means you can. The difference between the highest price the market will bear and the lowest cost you can make them for is your profit.

"But Franklin!" I hear you cry. "What about competition? If I can get my cell phone or my ice cream from many different places, they will compete with each other on price until they have arrived at the lowest profit margin they can accept!"

Which is true, in the same world where unicorns cavort with dragon whelps over fields of cotton candy.

Yes, businesses will sometimes compete with one another on price, to a limited extent, in order to create market share. But let me let you in on a secret: It is better for me to capture only 40% of the market and make a profit of $50 a widget than to capture 90% of the market and make only $3 a widget.

Companies know this. Industries develop a sense of what their expected profit margin ought to be, and then compete on price only so long as it doesn't erode that. The supply-demand curve they taught you in grade school? It's rubbish. It doesn't account for the fact that when consumers expect to pay a certain amount for something, they'll keep paying that amount even if the cost of production falls. It doesn't account for the fact that consumers will often rate a product as more desirable if it carries a higher price, even if the quality is exactly the same as a lower-priced item. It doesn't account for the fact that supply and demand do not exist in a vacuum, nor for the fact that demand is not infinitely elastic, nor for the fact that demand depends on many factors, quite a few of which have nothing to do with supply.

It also doesn't account for the fact that supply is not always responsive to demand, for reasons that may range from capitalization costs to the fact that low availability can create that air of increased desirability I just mentioned.

Even supposedly "commodity" goods like oil and wheat are not priced according to the strict laws of supply and demand; things like futures and derivatives can change their price even when supply remains exactly the same. (If there is a sudden increase in trading for oil futures, for instance, the price of oil may rise even though the production of oil is completely unchanged and the demand for oil hasn't budged one bit.)

So when people say things like "You're stupid to buy an iPhone; if you get a high-end model, you're paying $100 for $20 worth of additional flash memory," they're speaking from a profound ignorance of how any market system works. Sorry, Mr. Savvy Consumer, but you do that same sort of thing all the time, when you buy anything from tennis shoes to lumber.

So back to Apple's supposed "evil."

It is deeply silly to say "I'm not going to buy an iPhone because Apple is an evil company." Not because it's false, but because it's trivially true. Well, duh. Of course Apple is an evil company. Apple is ruthless, anticompetitive, and sociopathic. This is not a terribly profound insight. Yes, Apple is an evil company; in other news, the sky is up and water is wet.

Apple is an evil company because every successful multinational corporation is evil.

They have to be. The laws governing and regulating corporations pretty much guarantee that any publicly-traded corporation must be sociopathic in nature. Any company, large or small, doesn't succeed by leaving money on the table if it doesn't have to; public corporations are legally obligated to seek maximum return for their shareholders, by whatever means are available to them. A corporation that has the opportunity to increase revenue or lower costs and fails to do so can be sued by its shareholders.

Let's look at Google, the company whose motto is "Don't Be Evil." They make an operating system that is touted as being "open," that is supposedly "open source," and that anyone can use to make a smartphone, right?

You know how anyone is free to download and build the Android source code? Well, err, that applies only to older versions, and even then only to some parts of the Android code base, excluding Google's apps that run atop it. You know how anyone can use Android on their mobile phone? Well, err, the name "Android" is trademarked, so you have to license the use fo the name from Google...and how many consumers going to buy an Android phone that's advertised as running an "Android-like operating system"?

That gives Google considerable leverage. So much that they can tell a hardware maker "We demand you cancel your phone that uses a rival operating system" and the handset maker will comply so fast that journalists will still show up for the product launch and end up milling around an empty hall.

Yes, Apple is an evil company. Google is an evil company. Microsoft is a company of such breathtakingly creative evil that even the Department of Justice is effectively powerless to reign it in, no matter how egregiously it has broken the law. If you find yourself with warm, fuzzy feelings about any globocorp, it is only because that globocorp has paid good PR money to program you with those feelings. To believe anything else is naivety in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Those underpaid workers making iPads in Foxconn factories? They're making gizmos for Dell and Cisco and Microsoft and HP and Motorola and Nokia and Samsung and Intel, too...and under working conditions that the folks making sneakers for Nike would give their right arm to enjoy.

Of course, not all evil is created equal. The evil of Google and Apple might reach farther than the evil of Nike, but the evil of Nike is probably a lot more serious for those on the pointy end of it. As evil as Nike is, it's a whole lot less evil than the Wall Street companies that crashed the economy (and then blamed the wreckage on "poor people buying homes that were too expensive"), or the company you likely bank with if you use a large bank.

Me? I use a small, local credit union. And I'm still buying an iPhone.

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My opposition to Apple is purely financial - can it do what I want for the money I have to spend? In every case (of things that I want & stuff that I want to do), the answer is "no".

That's it. I don't have the actual cash to pay for Apple products and the things I need my electronics to do can be done by other products for cheaper. Maybe not better, or even as well, but can be done for cheaper. I'm under no illusions that I'm somehow supporting a saintly company that treats all of its employees like royalty and never cuts corners.

I have a few lines out there that I just can't cross (no blood diamonds for me, thank you very much) but if we actually tried to boycott companies for being "evil", we'd have to go back to the days of small, self-sustaining farming communities with no leisure time or modern luxuries. And I kinda like my modern conveniences like flush toilets and vaccinations.

All true, BUT.There was a bit in "The Corporation" where the CEO of Interface, the world's largest carpet manufacturer, talks about how the company is aiming at becoming environmentally sustainable, which was nowhere near as important in the public's eye back in 2003. Sadly I didn't get a chance to ask Joel Balkan (the author of the book behind the film) how that worked with the company's fiduciary obligations to shareholders, and it's been bothering me ever since.

So I'll ask you, instead: How much leeway do the C-level executives have when it comes to defining fiduciary responsibility? Is it essentially a case of "whatever we can get the board to agree to"? In the same vein, how does prioritizing of short-term vs. long-term profits play into this? You could argue both that selling off production assets to gain an immediate revenue boost is good for the shareholders and that subsidizing local education from current cash flow, but ensuring a long-term supply of skilled workers is good. It's all a question of what you define as the scope of your analysis.

How much leeway do the C-level executives have when it comes to defining fiduciary responsibility?

Something The Corporation failed to mention, other than those fine 14th Amendment decisions, was the chief legal precedent tying the hands of presidents everywhere, Dodge v. Ford. Essentially, Henry Ford decided to keep surplus revenue from his shareholders and use the dividend money to instead build a parts factory.

The Dodge Brothers objected. You see, not only were they the biggest Ford shareholders, but they also supplied Ford with parts. The settlement from their winning day in court not only forced Ford to pay dividends, Ford also had to buy the Dodge Bros. out, giving them enough cash to start their own car company.

So your question about leeway depends upon not so much on the board, but the will of the shareholders and how likely they would be to sue if the president, say, decided to pay above market wages in a soft hiring environment when the money could have instead gone to dividends. As a result, presidents must shoot for profit over building a deep company, and do this four times a year.

First, must one be a shareholder of a certain size (whether in relative or absolute terms) before such a threat carries weight? For the sake of argument let's assume that financial resources to fuel such a lawsuit aren't an issue.

Second, am I understanding you correctly, and short-term profits *always* take precedence over long-term ones, even if the latter are (predicted to be, road not taken and all that) higher?

One must be a shareholder to have experienced damages to one's holdings, yes. The size of the holdings might be moot if one can turn the legal action into one affecting all shareholders.

And on your second question, as I understand the Ford ruling, kinda. After all, Henry Ford explicitly stated why he was not going to issue dividends. The judge noted this, also noted that Ford obviously had done plenty right to get his company to where it was. It just wasn't enough of a defense to avoid losing the case. The law of "enhancing shareholder value" took precedence.

So, should a president decide to pursue strengthening a company through investment, he or she should couch the reasons for that investment in ways that can't bite the butt in court later. Bill Gates, IIRC, got a couple of eyebrow raises when the book cookers used questionable accounting to allow him a long-term company investment using revenues. Not sure how far that made it through the legal process.

Still feeling the whole situation out, hence the jumping around of questions.

Since we're referring back to a US court case, how different would the situation be elsewhere, especially in the case of multinationals? And while we're on the topic, would a hypothetical shareholder's lawsuit be governed by the jurisdiction of the shareholder's residence, or the one where the corp is headquartered?

Ooo, multinationals. I believe the national boundary laws within which an action occurs apply to the action. This leads to legal arbitrage, a techy term for moving actions illegal in one boundary to quite another, in essence playing national governments against each other.

Now, a share holder suit? I confess to be out of my legal expertise on that. I'd guess that the laws of the country in which the business is incorporated would apply. In the case of multinationals, each country might sometimes be host to a different branch of the company, so a multinational might be several companies that agree to act more or less in concert. Again, this is a WAG based on clues picked up here and there.

Happy to help. I only hope I wasn't completely wrong. (That sometimes happens.)

I wouldn't let the depression thing get in the way. Do remember that this shareholder value thing only applies to publicly held corporations. More and more, according to a few news stories I've heard, business folks are eschewing the big stock IPO payout and building their businesses to avoid going public entirely. This limits their size, but increases their autonomy.

Nicely put. I'm curious, have you read Steve Keen's Debunking Economics? He's got one of the more technical but fascinating explanations of why, among other things, the supply/demand curves are complete made-up bollocks.

It's a healthy-sized read. For an appetizer, the author recently got into a snit-fit on how banks work with none other than Paul Krugman. Turns out Krugman is probably wrong, which is surprising to most (except those who read Keen), but Krugman has enough gravitas to end the debate by simply dropping the subject and not conceding defeat. (Debate synopsis here.)

Keen's also done some good podcast interviews, two at From Alpha to Omega (despite the title, not religious at all) and one each at the C-Realm and the Extraenvironmentalist, on top of a bunch of Youtube stuff.

Acer is part of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). One of the requirements is that companies in the OHA do not build incompatible Android based products - Alibaba is an incompatible, Android based product. If Acer was not part of the OHA, they'd be free to create a fork of Android with no restrictions (see Amazon and the Kindle Fire - plenty of sales on that 'Android-like operating system').

And I'm not sure what you mean by 'You know how anyone is free to download and build the Android source code? Well, err, that applies only to older versions' - I've built ROMs directly from source for my phone - and that is the latest release (if not newer than what is released by the carriers).

On the flip side, the OHA is basically every player in the handset racket save Apple and Nokia...and that doesn't change the fact that Google can, and will, muscle handset makers who try to release handsets around alternative operating systems. Indeed, if the OHA contract has that provision, you've just demonstrated my point for me; Google is leveraging its control over a "free, open source" operating system to compel handset makers to play by its rule.

The Kindle Fire isn't a phone. Amazon doesn't care that forking Android means they can't make cell phones that run Android, as Amazon...err, doesn't make cell phones.

What's released by the carriers isn't necessarily what's the newest version of Android; for example, Ice Cream Sandwich didn't get released by my carrier until six months after it was available to phone manufacturers. Google makes no source code available to anyone save its handset partners in the OHA until after that version of Android is finalized; Google apologists claim this is for "quality" reasons, though it seems very convenient that it also prevents the handset makers from departing the OHA (and Google's control) and still releasing any phones with the newest operating system until months or years after their rivals.

If Acer was not part of the OHA, they'd be free to create a fork of Android with no restrictions...

...except the restriction of not being able to call it Android, participate in the Android Marketplace (er, Google Play), and include official Google Apps.

To Amazon that isn't a big deal because Amazon doesn't give a tinker's damn about Google services. But Google's restrictions on Android branding are the reason that Nokia chose to go with Windows Phone rather than Android when they decided to bail on their home-grown MeeGo system. Nokia wanted to be able to customize Android services past the point that Android's branding guidelines permitted and Google refused to grant them permission.

I generally agree with Franklin's descriptions of companies here, and the distinction I see between Google and Apple is how the two make their money. I am Apple's customer. An Android user is not Google's customer. This carries a lot of implications about priorities.

I support your right to get what you want, but I'm sticking with Android, and not because of the lawsuits and politics. I just find it is a much better experience for me than iOS. I made the switch from iOS over a year ago and can't fathom going back, from a strictly software and user experience sense. While they may both be walled gardens in a sense, at least on Android I can arrange my flowerpots the way I want.

Now, yes, these are satirical. When examined seriously, and when one reads the posts that go with them however, it really does paint a picture of a company that cares for profits first, customers much further down the list, if at all. Apple releases "new" (read: mostly just the same old same old in a new wrapper until their monkey-slaves have coded a new operating system) versions of their products in a line of succession that's ridiculously quick, and that's impossible to keep up with unless you're independently rich. Steve Jobs deserved to be bludgeoned with his own phone for that Antenna/"hold it the proper way" bullshit (little newsflash for you in whatever Hell you're burning in, Stevie - the majority of the world is -RIGHT-handed.) And I honestly do believe Stevie ended up in Hell, because he managed to find a way to sell the concept that -everyone- "needs" to have a smartphone, whether it's within their financial means or not. People screw themselves over every month, trying to afford the product that his smarmy, pretentious company of assholes convinced them that they absolutely -needed-. Jobs was an asshole.

For that matter, get your iPhone wet in the slightest, even if it's just accidentally dropping it on a damp lawn, and you have to pay full price for a new one. No "replacing" it under warranty, you *are* buying a new one if you want to keep your shiny toy. Hear that scream? It's your wallet and bank account as Apple holds it down and has their way with it.